BleepingComputer.com: Unknown device?

OK...so I defaulted back to XP now; Win7 was causing too much grief.
During the CLEAN install, everything went well. Had to go to the ASUS website to pick up some drivers and patches (to be expected) to make the Network and SOund cards function, but now I have an UNKNOWN DEVICE that shows up, and I can't seem to figure out:
i) what it is
ii) what it does
iii) if I should even care about it since everything "seems" to be working properly.

I've downloaded some freeware utilities that can supposedly identify this mystery device, but so far none of them do! This was an issue in Win7 as well, but it fixed itself after a MB update.

Any ideas or suggestions?

This post has been edited by Qwazert: 29 November 2010 - 03:40 PM

Quote

Hi -
Without a bit more information about "Unknown Device" is related to it can not be diagnosed -
Have you run a Check Disk scan or a sfc /scannow check at all ??

Thank You -
EDIT -

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Can you be more specific about this also -

This post has been edited by noknojon: 30 November 2010 - 12:13 AM

There is a way to find out what the device is.

Go to device Manager, right click on the unknown device. (It could be anything-this is where things with no drivers are listed. I once had a system with a Sound Blaster card in it. It would show as unknown device until I installed the drivers. Using the method below allowed me to find out what the device was.)

Choose Update Driver Software.

In the next pane, choose Browse my computer for driver software.

Another pane will open, choose Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer. Click Next.

When the next window opens, you *should* see what the device is.

At that point, you can close out the window without doing anything UNLESS you want to install the driver.

If it's something you need help finding a driver for, post the device name here and someone will assist you.

Thanks to all for the concern and help. As it turns out, I just got SO FRUSTRATED with W7 that I reformatted and went back to XP. Once installed, the Device Manager listed a few of my hardware items differently than what W7 said they were. So far, everything is working fine; even those programs that would cause W7 to freeze, are working properly.
I guess the Microsoft "advisor" that said I could run 7 on this machine was faulty.

OK, it says the device as BCM5701 Gigabit Ethernet, however when I tell it to install the driver, it warns me that the driver is not compatible with this machine and may cause it to fail!
I have no issues with my network connection...should I disable it or just ignore it?

This post has been edited by Qwazert: 01 December 2010 - 10:02 AM

System manufacturer and model?

If custom/self-built...motherboard manufacturer and model?

Is there a PCI NIC installed?

Louis

It is an Asus M2N-E with AMD dual-core processor, 1.25Gb Ram...I didn't build-it-myself, but it could have been by the previous owner. There is an internal NIC and it is enabled in the BIOS...the Device Manager claims that the onboard NIC is Nvidia and it is working properly.
Should I care about this or is it just a red herring?

This post has been edited by Qwazert: 01 December 2010 - 01:38 PM